The Brexit Blog

Thursday, 29 June 2017

Taking Spain as an example, the ONS reports that the population of British citizens resident in Spain was 296,600 in 2016.
Within this figure 121,000 (40%) British residents in Spain were aged 65 and over in 2016; this number has more than doubled since 2006.

Whereas there were 116,000 Spanish citizens resident in the UK in 2013 to 2015.

This means, as the ONS helpfully points out, that there are over twice as many Brits living in Spain as there are Spanish people in the UK.

At this point I would remind Theresa May and David Davis that if we don't sort out the rights of EU citizens in the UK to everyone's satisfaction, we will be inundated with hundreds of thousands of "Victor Meldrews" returning to these shores, without accommodation, in declining health and in a very grumpy frame of mind!

Friday, 23 June 2017

On the first anniversary of the Brexit vote, EU leaders have described the UK’s opening offer to protect EU
citizens’ rights as vague and inadequate, suggesting the British
government needs to go further.

Jean-Claude Juncker,
the president of the European commission, struck a dismissive note as
he arrived at an EU leaders’ summit on Friday. As per the Guardian:

“That is a first step but
this step is not sufficient.”

Asked whether he was any clearer about the kind of Brexit the UK wants, he was equally blunt:

Thursday, 15 June 2017

The UK will tell Brussels next week that it will guarantee EU nationals living in Britain the rights they currently have, and aim to treat them “as fairly as they
have been to this point”.

Whilst Britain
wants the cut-off point for citizens’ rights to be March 29 this year,
when the UK notified its intention to leave the EU, it is expected to
accede to EU demands that the date should be Brexit day itself in 2019.

This is the state of play according to the FT and, assuming the UK doesn't have a change of government before next week, is likely to be the starting point for the long process of Brexit negotiations.